The Lost Wolf | N.Romanoff

Chapter 1: 11 Years Later

Greece, Antipaxos, 2012 January

It's been eleven years since Athena escaped Hydra and eighteen years since she had last been with her family, since she hugged her Μητέρα (mother), eighteen years since she played with her brother, since she walked up trails with her father.

Athena missed her family, her pack with everything in her heart, with every year that passed, the beating of her heart cracks a little more. She wished that could run up to her family and hug them and never let go but she knew if she went to them then Hydra would come. Hydra would hurt her family in the cruellest of ways that even the gods of Olympus would be horrified of. The young wolf couldn't allow that.

Despite her distance from her pack and the accompanied heartbreak, Athena survived and thrived with what she had at her disposal.

Athena discovered skills and a mental ability that she used to get into an online secondary school getting As and A*s at an exceptional rate. Using those grades to get into college, Athena again got A*s in Biology, Advanced Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. She then at age 18 got into the National and Kapodistrian University of Greece, where she studied Aerospace science & technology, advanced physics, medicine and biology. Athena achieved her PhD in medicine, biology and advanced physics and is currently waiting to see if she has gotten her masters in Aerospace Science & Technology. This had been something she had been working on in the background of her day-to-day life, she put a lot of effort into being able to pass these exams without having to travel every day to her university.

Athena used her desire for knowledge as an escape from her thoughts but her want to learn wasn't her only escape. Athena found her way around all technology that she came past, especially computers. She loved going where she wasn't meant to in the world of binary. She used her skill with computers to hide from Hydra whilst she moved around the Greek islands and got her education. She not only used her ability with computers to avoid her monsters, but she also sold her skill to anyone in the dark web who needed her talents enough to pay a minimum of six figures. She had been learning and advancing in hacking her way through the world of technology since she was 13, selling her skills from the age 15 to help pay for her life of running and learning.

Athena can see the danger of getting her education and selling her talents, no matter how hard it would be to tell it's Athena and trace everything back to her. She can still see how dangerous it is. Whilst she wants to survive Hydra in the pure hope that she will return to her family and be happy, she's on the razor's edge. It's like the more she goes on the more the world around her crumbles, yet the lost wolf knows she has to keep her world from finally crumbling because she has hope. Hope for a better life, hope for her family, hope to see a better future, a hope to find her soulmate. That is what keeps her from falling off the edge. Hope.

So even though she has the money to never work and to hide from the world, she kept her profile relatively low. There were enjoyable things she allowed herself once she found someplace safe enough. That being a beautiful home on the island of Antipaxos. One of the least populated Greek islands. She made sure she knew everything about everyone on the island. Athena bought herself a quaint house painted white and with the window shutters dawned in a lovely blue, the house had flowers growing up the wall and over the stairway to the door. However, she spent little time in the house herself, she let someone else use it.

The quaint house sat in the town of the island of Antipaxos wasn't the only thing she let herself get.

Athena got her real home built away from the village and surrounded by green trees. She knew the house she bought was unrealistic for someone of her age and that people would be suspicious of how she got it, another reason she got the house that was in the town, but Athena also desired something unrealistic and pretty. She wanted an escape, that's what the house became, her escape from reality.